


Mutually Assured Devotion

by rjn



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:39:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjn/pseuds/rjn
Summary: I could have really hurt you.You’d never hurt me.Don’t put that on me, Clint. You know what I’m capable of.





	Mutually Assured Devotion

In the beginning, she took Clint for somewhat of a cartoonish company man, naively committed to the cause. (Even though the first time she came to know him as an Agent of SHIELD was when he was acting in direct defiance of company orders by refusing to put an arrow in her skull.) She hadn’t been totally off base, though, because Barton does have a twisted sort of reverence sometimes for institutions. So much so that his interactions with Steve can be awkward and guileless with adoration. Steve Rogers, _the man,_ is the physical embodiment of Captain America, _the symbol of a nation_ , and Barton is headlong and passionate in his undying pledge of allegiance.

But she knows now that he’s not some guileless employee, not by any stretch. Clint just maybe wants to believe in good old-fashioned American ideals, like maybe there are some residual self-hating circus boy tendencies, a longing for the imagined wholesome life he used to pass by on the train as The World’s Greatest Marksboy.

_Clint never talks about the circus, but she’s done the research. His story is not the amusing background anecdote Stark would like it to be; Barton living out the child’s fantasy of running away to join the circus.  It was more like a traumatized child with unnatural abilities paraded around the country as a freak of nature. Her heart breaks for him in confederate affection._

She understands his drive, then, for the conventional. From Natasha’s calculations, there were only about four months where Clint could have lived a normal civilian life before he took up with SHIELD, and yet he’d arrived as a newlywed, his wife the picture of the rural American dream; hard working, modest, beautiful. If Nat noticed Clint’s face showed that glimmer of awe in the presence of Captain America, it was only because she was so used to the full-blown expression of wonder he gets around Laura and the kids.

They were a mismatched pair of orphans, Nat and Clint, from the moment he lowered his bow and held out his hand to her. Because Nat… certainly, obviously, inevitably… _despises institutions_. Fears them. Nothing is as suspicious as an affiliation; nothing is as dangerous as an organization. But when she’s proven right again, the Hydra infiltration, she is surprised to find that somehow she still believes in SHIELD. Or at least in the SHIELD that Clint gave to her.

_Clint contacts her using their personal electronic dead drop, their private encryption, and with everything crumbling around them, two things are evident; that Clint’s concern for Natasha is as much an overruling priority as the security of the farm, and that he has unwavering faith in Natasha to bring down Hydra._

And that’s their shared ethos, the tie that has bound them together all these years. Clint believes in _people._ Not institutions. They both do. It’s why they weren’t phased when they wound up on opposite sides of the Accords. Natasha found that she could have faith in her own position without doubting Clint’s true nature. She did, however, take issue with his half-hearted fighting, and it was impetus for the worst argument of their entire relationship.

_I could have really hurt you._

_You’d never hurt me._

_Don’t put that on me, Clint. You know what I’m capable of._

_But you wouldn’t…_

It was endlessly frustrating, Clint pulling his punches even then, while they argued about the long-settled airport battle. The farm had been an absurd backdrop to their shouting match, Clint’s ankle monitor an aggravating reminder that there were always consequences neither one of them could predict or control. Clint’s seeming wholesale resignation, his _acceptance_ of all this, scared her as much as it angered her. He weakened, left it to her to drop the hammer.

_What would have happened if I’d gone easy on you on the helicarrier? with Loki?_

Clint had flinched at that. She knew about the nightmares. When he would see himself walking away from her broken corpse, his ice-filled eyes not sparing a glance back.

_Promise me. Never hold back again._

And Clint had agreed.

It makes her all the more resolute in her decision, when he keeps his promise and does not hesitate to put her down and put her down as fast and hard as he possibly can. He can’t win in a drawn-out fight anymore. He’s not as acrobatic as her, not as strong as he was before his training had become sword-focused. So he goes for the quick and fast hit, the element of surprise. It’s a race and he’s cheated from the starting line. He is ruthless, determined, and she knows with absolute clarity that she loves him more than anything in the world.

And when he pleads with her, there’s an element of shock to it, a disbelief behind the horror. He’d believed it.

_You’d never hurt me, Nat._

_I’m sorry, Clint, but I will._


End file.
